


Pandora's Gift

by ladyeternal



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Boy Kissing, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Depressed Dean, Episode Related, First Kiss, Grieving Dean, M/M, Resurrected Castiel (Supernatural), episode 13x05, thanatology is the study of death, the man-tears are not singular this time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 09:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12679512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyeternal/pseuds/ladyeternal
Summary: Only death can pay for life.  But sometimes, when they least expect it, the Winchesters get more than they thought they'd paid for.





	Pandora's Gift

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: BOTH RAGNAROK AND SPN HAVE COME RIGHT UP TO THE EDGE OF GIVING ME CANON HUGS AND THEN CUT AWAY BEFORE THE PAYOFF. WTAFE.
> 
> *breathes* Now that that's off my chest: here's my surprisingly non-porny take on the scene we were denied in this episode. Dedicated to the expressions on Dean & Castiel's faces in that last scene.
> 
> Feedback is adored, so if you like the fic, please comment! And the more details the better; I love knowing what people enjoy about my work.
> 
> Spoilers: This is a coda to episode 13x05 and is therefore spoilery for that ep and anything else that has aired before it.
> 
> Music: [I Wanna Go Home – Michael Buble](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsQb6724GvA)  
> [The Light – Disturbed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1UUAhZ3JzM)  
> [Ashes of Eden – Breaking Benjamin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8IrtEkWcBQ)

****

~ooooOOOoooo~

Sam was sleeping in the passenger seat beside him, insensate to the long, quiet roll of asphalt beneath the Impala’s wheels. Dean had never minded driving at night, but tonight it left him with too many thoughts and not enough noise to drown them out. Everything had felt heavy since that catastrophic night by the lake, and Billie’s solemn yet vague pronouncement about his and Sam’s importance made the weight even more crushing. He needed music to break out of it when he was behind the wheel; a steady supply of booze to drown it was waiting for him at the bunker, but it felt like an eternity away just now.

The phone in his pocket ringing startled him from his thoughts even as it woke Sam up, and Dean fumbled to answer it without looking at the caller ID. Most hunters changed numbers on a regular enough basis that he wasn’t likely to recognize it anyway. “Yeah?” he growled, his voice feeling rough even to his own ears.

_“Dean?”_

Only by the grace of pure muscle memory did Dean manage to not swerve off the road from shock at the sound of that voice. Vaguely, he heard Sam ask ‘what’ when he looked at his brother, reflexively anchoring himself into the world and checking to be sure he hadn’t fallen asleep at the wheel.

_“Dean, are you there?”_

His voice wouldn’t work. Couldn’t work. Something wild and unnameable thundered wildly in his chest as the voice sounded again. So impossible. So unmistakable.

_“Dean?”_ Worried. Confused.

“Where are you?” he finally croaked. He saw Sam’s eyebrows go up even higher in concern from the corner of his sight. He didn’t care. He couldn’t explain. Couldn’t bring himself to say it until he knew for sure it was real and not some horrific cosmic prank.

If this wasn’t real, whatever was doing this was going to die bloody. Even if Dean had to beat it to a smear with his bare hands.

_“I’m at a payphone near a church in Lakewood, Colorado. Dean, are you all right?”_

There was no way he could possibly answer that question. Too many words slammed their way up into his throat, together with a laugh that was at once so hysterical and so caustic that Dean was afraid he really would crash the car if he let it out. “We’re on our way back to the bunker from a job in Grand Junction; I’ll have Sam hack the number and we’ll meet you there.”

_“But you’re all right? What about Sam? Your mother? Jack?”_

There it was again: a laugh that felt like battery acid in his throat, leaving him light-headed as it shoved up into his mouth. He had to slam his teeth together to hold it back, before everything he was disassembled from the desperate thing still trying to claw its way out of his chest. “See you in a bit; just hold tight.” He hung up before anything else could be said and tossed the phone to Sam. “Run a trace on that number; should be a payphone in Lakewood. Need to get a location.”

“Who was it?” Sam asked. Dean could hear the fear in Sam’s voice, leftover from his suicidal tactics during the hunt and lingering from the grief that had been slowly hollowing Dean out for days. “Dean?”

“Not sure,” Dean replied. His knuckles went white as his grip on the steering wheel tightened and he put the accelerator on the floor. “But if all this is for nothing, whoever it is ain’t gonna live long enough to regret it.”

* * *

They pulled down the side street about an hour later. Dean hadn’t been verbal for the remainder of the drive and Sam had quit trying to get him to talk after about thirty miles, speaking only when he needed to give Dean directions so that they could find the payphone. When they finally found it, there was a figure standing in the shadows near the payphone, facing away from the approaching car.

Every instinct in Dean’s body started screaming before he even brought the Impala to a complete stop.

It made no sense. It wasn’t possible. They couldn’t even really see who it was, especially with the person’s face turned completely away from them. It still took everything Dean had left to keep a grip on rational thought as he stepped out of the car once he killed the engine, glancing at Sam once before closing the door and walking closer.

Impossible. Inconceivable. And yet, somehow, Dean knew it was true before the person standing near the payphone turned around. Knew and was frozen by it, unable to believe what he was seeing.

The trench coat. The not-quite cinched tie. The inky hair that always looked like it had been through a windstorm. The strong jaw with perpetual five o’clock shadow. The stubborn chin and generous mauve lips. The stunning blue eyes that Dean could see even from a distance were wet with tears, aching with relief.

“Cas?” It was Sam’s voice echoing in the background, disbelief like a crystal prism shattering on the floor.

Those lips tried and failed to shape a word in response, throat bobbing around the sound that wouldn’t form, and suddenly Dean was moving, unable to be still any longer, all thought obliterated but one. All of the weight he’d been carrying was suddenly lifted and cast away, propelling him across the space between them faster than if he’d been the one with wings.

His hands caught that stubble-rough jaw as they crashed into the chain-link fence behind the angel, a sound somewhere between a whimper and a sob leaving one of them as Dean’s lips crashed into their target. Castiel’s arms were around his chest, hands knotted into the back of his flannel shirt as he met Dean’s open-mouthed hunger with a ferocity that should have shocked him. Could have if Dean had been thinking about anything beyond the moment. Would have if he’d cared about anything but the taste of his angel’s mouth and the scent of ozone coming off Castiel’s skin.

How long they stayed like that, Dean couldn’t have guessed. They were drowning in one another; Castiel as hungry for Dean as Dean was for him, their mouths chasing one another as the chain-link creaked beneath their combined weight with every shift of their bodies. Seconds. Hours. An eternity passed before they finally surfaced, Dean still cradling Castiel’s face and Castiel clinging to his beloved human as though he might slip back through the Veil if he let go.

“You’re alive.” It was a whisper, wondering and tentative. It was still possible that this was all a dream. That he would wake at any moment in his bed in the bunker, or in the backseat of Baby, and the joy singing in his veins would turn to ash when reality sank back in.

“You’re not all right.” Castiel was staring up at him, into him, those too-blue eyes seeing everything far more clearly than Dean had been comfortable with at first. He’d gotten used to it, over the years. Somehow acclimated to the fact that there was one person other than Sam in the whole wide universe that could see what he tried to hide by the way he tried to hide it.

His vision blurred as tears Dean hadn’t been able to shed suddenly welled up and spilled free, the unhinged laughter that had kept trying to burst from his throat transmuting into a choked-back sob that was somewhere between joy and residual grief. “What else is new?” he asked, his thumbs stroking along the arch of Castiel’s cheekbones. Tangible. Real.

Castiel didn’t say anything to that, electing instead to draw Dean into a firm, comforting hug. Dean’s head came to rest on his shoulder and Castiel leaned his own head against it, feeling the tremors wracking his hunter’s frame and threatening to shake Dean apart at the seams. His eyes found Sam’s over Dean’s shoulder and he offered the younger Winchester a soft, almost abashed smile, feeling tears of his own slide from his eyes to match the ones tracking down Sam’s face.

It was another long moment before Dean lifted his head again, one hand coming back up to cup Castiel’s cheek in wet-eyed wonder. “You’re really alive,” Dean murmured. “How?”

“A long story,” Castiel told him gently, leaning into the touch. “As I’m sure the events here on Earth since my death are… both of which might be best told when we get back to the bunker.”

“Yeah.” Dean knew he was right. Knew they needed to get back to the bunker, to the nephil that Sam had talked him into leaving unattended. To a long cold drink that would hopefully ease the knot that had tied itself in his throat and a slice of the pie that he’d bought at the local farmer’s market right before they’d left on the hunt.

Castiel leaned up, brushing his lips gently over Dean’s. It was so much more chaste than the kiss they’d shared only moments ago, and yet the soft contact sent a shiver of heat through Dean’s body.

It was only their second kiss, Dean suddenly realized. They moved together so easily that it might have been the thousandth, but it was only the second. And if Billie was right, and they were important, that meant Castiel was too, because he was back. He’d come back from what no other angel had, and was here in Dean’s arms, and they’d just exchanged their second kiss.

There would be many, many more, if Dean had his way. They had work to do; work Castiel was obviously part of. Dean wasn’t going to waste any more time.

He leaned in again, slowly pressing his mouth to Castiel’s and soaking up their third kiss like a plant absorbed sunlight. The animal thing in his chest was calm now, quieted by the reality of the angel in his arms. Hope, he realized as they drifted back out of the kiss. The thing that had made his heart feel like it was going to explode in his chest had been hope.

It wasn’t often that hope was a thing the Winchesters were rewarded for, anymore.

“Come on, Cas,” he murmured, his hand gliding down and tangling with Castiel’s. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
